, in fact, the only possible line of communication for the
fortress of Verdun. The other line, running from Verdun to St.
Mihiel, was rendered useless after the Germans had fixed themselves
at St. Mihiel in September, 1914.

Up to the first months of 1916 there was only a small local railway
that could be used between Revigny and Ste. Menehould by Triaucourt.
Of the two big lines, one was cut by the Germans, and the other
was exposed to the fire of their heavy artillery.

The violence of the German attacks in the Argonne prove that so
long ago as September, 1914, they already dreamt of taking Verdun.
Their aim was to force the French troops against Ste. Menehould
and invest the fortress on three sides to bring about its fall.

These Argonne battles were invested with a particular interest and
originality. They were in progress for a whole year, in a thick
forest of almost impenetrable brushwood, split with numerous deep
ravines and abrupt, slippery precipices. The humidity of the forest
is excessive, the waters pouring down from high promontories. The
soldiers who struggled here practically spent two winters in the
water.

One can hardly imagine the courage and heroism necessary to bear
the terrible hardships of fighting under such conditions. All the
German soldiers made prisoners by the French describe life in the
Argonne as a hideous nightmare.

From the end of September, 1914, the Germans delivered day and night
attacks, generally lasting ten days. These attacks were made with
forces of three or four battalions up to a division or a division
and a half. In each attack the Germans aimed at a very limited
objective--to capture the first or second line of trenches, to seize
some particular fortified point. That object once attained, the
Germans held on there, consolidated the occupied terrain, fortified
their new positions and prepared for another push forward. It was
thus by a process of nibbling the French trenches bit by bit that
the Germans hoped to attain the Verdun-Ste. Menehould line.

The tactics employed in these combats were those suited to forest
fighting; sapping operations methodically and minutely carried out
to bring the German trenches as near as possible to the French;
laying small mines to be exploded at a certain hour. Two or three
hours before an attack the French positions were bombarded by trench
mortars and especially heavy mine throwers.

At the short distances the effect would naturall